David Togasaki

David Togasaki, a descendant of parents who experienced the war, was born in 1952 in San Francisco. The following interview is a reflection on the perseverance of his grandparents, parents and aunts, and the strife they experienced while incarcerated in Poston. Recalling that his parents never spoke about camp until David and his siblings were old enough to question, his aunts, on the other hand, were very supportive of the redress movement and fight for reparations, encouraging his father to use his testimony to help the movement. Coming from a family of medical professionals, his aunts were some of the first people to help set up facilities in camp in the hospital, and were deeply disappointed with the lack of medical supplies given to the community. His aunts, all accomplished in their medical professions, were highly skilled practitioners. His aunt Kazue was one of the first Japanese American women to earn a doctorate in medicine in the United States.

This interview was conducted on February 19, 2002, on the 60th anniversary of the signing of EO 9066.

When and where you were born?

I was born in 1952 in San Francisco.

Now, you were born after WWII ended. Was it your grandparents or your parents or your great grandparents that came to the United States?

My paternal grandparents came to the United States before my grandfather came before the turn of the century.

Do you know what year?

Now, that was the early 1890s, I believe.

Really? That's really early.

Yes. Yes.

So he was one of the early people to come to the mainland.

Yes. My grandfather was from the Burakumin. My grandmother, I believe, was from Tokyo. And they met because she was a member of the WCTU, the anti-alcohol group from the Prohibition era. The Women's Christian Temperance Union is what it was in Japan. I'm not sure whether they met here, or I think they met here because she may have been meeting immigrants at the boats. Early on, when all the family was fairly young, they lived in San Francisco. It was difficult because they were under the Chinese Exclusion Act prejudices. So they experienced firsthand of the racial prejudice at the time. For example, my grandfather drove a milk truck. Other drivers would try and hit him with the whips because he was Japanese. These are horse drawn trucks.

That's pretty violent.

Yeah and the children had to go to segregated schools. There were segregated schools at that time in San Francisco.

Do you know about where they had their home?

They had one home around the Union Square area. About where the ACT Theater is currently. After the earthquake, which was 1906, I think for a short time they lived out somewhere on Church Street in San Francisco, which is kind of the Mission area. And then I'm not sure where in Japantown but they lived in Japantown area for a time. A number of the children were going to college, most of them went to University of California. They moved to Berkeley because I think they had three or four at Cal at the same time. And so it was cheaper to commute for my grandfather than for the kids. And so they moved to Berkeley.

Now, were their children old enough to be US citizens so that they can buy the house? 

Yes. The house was in one of the children's names. I don't remember who it was. There were a number of houses that were bought like that.

How did your grandparents afford houses and college when all he was doing was driving a milk truck?

He was a businessman.

Okay. So he started out as a milk man.

He started out and just built up his business, from what I understand. Well, I know both he and my grandmother were very intelligent. She helped him in the business. Apparently he was very much an intellectual. So she basically made sure that business kept going. But he always had ideas going on.

What kind of businesses did they have?

Apparently he drove a milk truck. Eventually got into import export because I know that they imported ceramics. And they did something with foodstuffs. The only reason I know that he was doing it is because there was a story of him dealing with MJB company, at the time which was a large coffee company. So I don't know exactly what he was doing with that. Either exporting or importing or buying goods from them. I know that there's a story of after the earthquake he went to the company to pay his debts. And apparently there were quite a few who didn’t because there were no records.

So where did they live when Pearl Harbor was bombed?

My family was in Alameda, I think, or part of the family was. I had one aunt who lived in San Francisco and another who lived in Berkeley, I guess.

Well it makes sense that because they were old enough.

Yeah, they were all old enough. My oldest brother and sister were around 8 or 11 or 7 or 10 at that time. 

Just backing up a little bit, how did they do during the Depression?

They survived. They never really talked. No one really talked about much of the family history that much until we started really delving into the redress issue. And then stories started coming out about the situation. We basically look at it as it was a pre-war, postwar family. Kazu was an obstetrician. Yoshiye was public health. Taru was a general internist, and the other three girls were all nurses.

Wow, they really liked the medical field.

They didn't want to teach, and a number of them didn't marry. So they went into a field that they could go into. And because they were brought up helping other families – apparently my grandmother would meet other families at the boat and help them to find a place to live and get them settled in San Francisco. And so if there were new mothers, the children were sent to help the mothers, because I suspect that from the way the stories are told is because the Japanese male has very little to do with the family and the care of children, I guess. My aunts were sent to help the families with cooking and caring for children.

So they already had practicum done before they headed in there.

And the boys were sent to do things like clean the furo (Japanese Bath), things like that. My grandfather and Kiyoshi went to Japan and did business over there. Kiyoshi eventually went into other businesses. He was publisher of Japan Times for a while. He ended up being president of Rotary International for a year, and then he was a president of a travel company for the last year of his working life. And I don't know the story of how he got to that position of [Japan Times] It's just all I know is, is he was very good with people. He was bilingual.

Has your family told you anything about what the day Pearl Harbor was like for them?

Other than shock and realizing that it was going to mean trouble for the Japanese.

I guess for us nowadays that wouldn't be a foregone conclusion. Well now if the United States and Japan went to war we feel kind of wrong. I mean we wouldn't feel threatened by that immediately. 

I don’t know. Just after the World Trade Center and the news reports came out that they were terrorists, basically everyone considered before they were talking too much about Al Qaeda, my first thought was okay, the government is going to go after the Arabs, the general populace. That’s always going to be your concern, your bigots who will just say, all right, let's just get rid of all of them. But there'll also be those in this country who say, no, wait, let's take our time here. 

And that was my first thought, we have to watch see how far they're going to go. And I figured, well, if it goes too far, then I'll probably join it or try to have any group who would oppose that.

Have they told you about what it was like when they got the evacuation order, the so-called evacuation order? 

A little bit. One of the interesting things is they told me that my grandfather was here at the time, and some of the Japanese Americans were mostly friends. They were just meeting and talking about these things. And my grandfather told them right away that the executive order was going to end up being a constitutional issue, which indeed was. And then it was just a matter of preparation because they knew they'd have to leave the area. I'm not sure about the timing of when my father and most of the family that was around here moved to Visalia. 

So they tried to avoid – 

Yeah, they tried to avoid because they had the buffer zone and there was a voluntary period where they could leave the area and they did. 

So who was it that moved to Visalia?

My father and his family and my brother and sister and my mother. I'm not sure who else was in Visalia at the time.

So four of them. But your grandparents stayed put.

My grandparents? I think my grandfather had gone back to Japan by then I suspect. My grandmother may have passed away by then.

So you've been told that your grandfather told his friends that the executive order was a constitutional issue or would end up being one. How did he get to Japan?

I don’t know. Well, there was some diplomatic [help]. But he made it back to Japan.

Which assembly center and camp did they go to if they were in the Bay Area? 

They may have ended up going down to L.A., wherever it was centered in LA.

Santa Anita or Pomona, right?

It seems to me as my mother was more likely in Santa Anita. Because my aunt helped set up the clinics in the camps. She had enough contact with the government administration that she was able to get most of the family together in Poston. 

And it’s kind of difficult because it's not like everybody from Santa Anita went to the same place. There was a lot of splitting up and you couldn't see everybody from the Bay Area who went there and here. So who else went ahead?

I think probably Teru, also. 

The non nurse medical practitioner.

Yes, well actually all the medical doctors and because she was in public health. She knew exactly what she wanted to do, well especially obviously in Aunt Yoshiye and Aunt Kazue, were exceedingly strong willed women. My grandmother was apparently very strong and they got that treaty. And so when they were preparing, my father got orders from one of my aunts to purchase as much medical supplies that he could to to establish the clinics. And so when they went to camp, they were taking with them whatever they could get ahold of.

So you're saying that the hospital facilities at assembly centers and camps were not stocked by the government.

Not totally? I can't see how much. My father was told to purchase stuff and whatever he was able to get, he took with him. I suspect they had supplies, but at that time there was war rationing. So there was limit to what was available. So people understood that, okay, we get whatever we can. And my aunt complained bitterly about the administration. 

Which one is that? 

Yoshiye. Because she felt that they weren't as qualified as they should be. Where they were is basically desert. And so that during the summer, you see, it's 120 degrees in the shade.

That sounds like Poston. 

That's why I'm thinking it’s Poston. And the tar paper buildings. And so there was no insulation. And no privacy.

So your oldest sister and brother remember camp?

Yes, to a degree. My sister never talked about it other than and my older brother didn't talk about other than the one family story that we kind of laugh about, which is the fact that my mother was very, was pretty strict, but she never raised her voice. I never heard her. And in the cafeteria, it's typical cafeteria. You just get stuff slopped on your plate. and my brother didn't want to eat. They had poured gravy all over salad or something, whatever. And he didn't want to eat it. And he and my mother sat there for hours until he finished his plate because she wouldn't let him leave the mess hall before he finished. And she just sat there.

But other than that they never talked about it. My parents didn't talk about it very much until we were adults starting to question things. And my aunts, being very supportive of redress, you know, things started coming out much more in order to as a community they organized everyone organized well the Japanese community is very, I think, very good about working together. So they set up businesses in Poston. I'm not sure where else, but those who were able to, grew vegetables and so forth.

I mean, well, actually they sold out to the outside.

They sold to the outside. Somehow they made paper mâché flowers and were able through contacts outside. It may have been church groups. I really don't know. They were able to sell the flowers to earn money. They used so much paper mâché that the manufacturer made my father the distributor for Southwest, which is kind of funny because he's kind of stuck in this camp. He's supposed to be distributor.

So it seemed that of all the camps, Poston was, um, the most organized or most or successfully created as normal life as possible because they had a swimming hole and a theater. But obviously other camps didn't have that degree of either freedom or artistry or creativity or, I don't know, maybe it was administration was a little more.

Yeah, it could have been a little looser. Yeah, it was a longer story that came out was in setting up this. They had a number of little businesses they made, they made tofu.

But they couldn't sell to the outside.

I know. But they used this particularly inside camp, um most of the food stuffs were done for the camp itself. But in for some reason there was a limited pay scale that employees could be paid.

Yeah. And whatever business my father was running, what he ended up doing to allow people to make extra money. He made everyone supervisors.

So they all got $19 a month. 

Yeah. Anything, anything to try. To make it easy for everyone.

So you were saying that your family really didn't talk about camp. What do you suspect stopped them from wanting to talk about it? 

On my mother's side, she wasn't one to talk. She was very stoic. Typical type. As far as just Japanese style, you just don't talk about things. Like the unpleasant things like that. At least in my mother's mind. And I suspect my father was [in the mindset of] just move on until we ask specific questions. 

How about your sister and brother?

That's really hard to say. I suspect that it affected them, it had to have affected them greatly, and we basically didn't ever talk about that subject. I suspect that it was on a very emotional level of being children when they went in the camps, being old enough to recognize that the situation wasn't good, but not understanding why.

Your sister would have been ten years old. When she was really beginning to understand, she could listen in on adult conversations and sort of grasp some of the, some of the threads, but not being an adult, not having really a say about it and for your brother, he’s probably too young. Are they still around?

My sister just passed away last year. My brother is still living.

Some people I interviewed who were children were so insulated from the pains that the parents were going through that the parents insulated them from all their worries about what they lost and so forth, that they have memories of just having fun and being with friends.

That could be possible. Because my parents were very private with us children. None of us ever saw them argue. So everything was done in private. I don't know what they would hear or learn during family discussions if my parents were with my aunts which you know, the family was very close to, they get together to eat and talk and if someone was visiting then everyone would come together. During those times, whatever discussions have happened is known if they started on a subject and everyone would talk about it. So I don't know what, what they heard at that time.

So your parents were private, but that didn't stop them from having open discussion?

Well, not so much my parents as my father with his siblings. Everyone on his side of the family is very outspoken. 

A devastating effect on you know family in the community, neighbors, friends. I mean, depending on how you answer, people became enemies overnight.

That I really don't know. I would suspect he and most of his friends just kind of wrote it off. They just, he didn't have any use for it. 

Oh, very practical.

He knew he was not going to be drafted because at the time he wanted to go into the military as far as WWII. But what happened was he was too young to go into World War One, ((Kioshye)) went or joined the army and went to Europe. And he was too old. By the time World War Two came around. But an interesting…one story that I'm not sure was. I think he told me was one of the things that they did in camp was they put together the camouflage netting. And someone from the military came and talked to them. And the pitch was, do this for your country. And his comment to this person was, we are here for our country. Don't use that approach because we're here because we're citizens. And we felt it was in the best interests of our country to come to the camps rather than try and fight it. And don't question our loyalty.

That's pretty heavy.

Yeah. And I suspect he was a little bit pissed. Because one day I saw my father, my aunts – they did not suffer fools gladly. And there was somebody does something like that. They have no use for me pretty much to say, okay, yeah, I've got no use for you. So then as far as the loyalty oath? I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure that, uh, he didn't sign it.

I know. You mean he didn't answer the question.

I would have a tendency to feel like he wouldn't have answered the questions.

He could have been arrested for it.

That's true. And on the practical side, he may have answered the questions for all I know. But I have no recollection. All I know is that when subject came up. And everyone in the family I guess it was, it was a stupid thing.

Talk to me about redress movement. What are your ideas? Questions? 

I really didn't have much. I thought it was a good idea. Not so much for the money but for the apology and my aunt was very strong supporter of redress. And she made my father tell us his history as far as just going to the camps so they could have it published in the Congressional Record. And he didn't want to do it, but she told us and it ended up being my brother Steve and Akira who went to him and said, “Okay, you have to tell us this. If you don't want to do it, then you have to tell our aunt.” And [he] couldn’t do that. So, yes.

He actually testified in the Congress?

He didn't testify. But they put together his statement and then it was sent along with other people's I think my aunt testified. 

Did you think it would actually happen, that the act would pass?

My father didn't. I was kind of I'll believe it when I see it.

It took a lot of guts, actually. I mean, such an unprecedented movement.

Yeah, I really respect the people who follow that through because of perseverance they need to have is incredible. As I understood, there were many facets, all different facets that they had to contend with.

I think of the redress as helping former internees resolve some of their past conflicts. Because so many former internees had shame around this. You know, incarceration, whether you're guilty or not, is still incarceration, you were labeled a criminal. And that's why.

Especially in Japanese society. I can remember my mother, after she became a U.S. citizen and she was called for jury duty and discussing with her, she had the attitude, “Look, in Japan, you're guilty until proven innocent.” And that was her attitude. If that's how she got off jury duty, although she did not realize it was. If he's here, he must've done something wrong. And, you know, he was out, of course, and there's no way she could be a juror. But that was her attitude. And we had these discussions. There's just no, that's not the way this system works. But she had that kind of attitude in that area. She's very conservative. If you had done something wrong, you would have been picked up by the police.

I see. She was guilty until the redress movement exonerated her. 

I don’t know. That's something we never discuss.

I know that for some people, the redress movement really exonerated them and allowed them to speak about camp. One because there are so many role models of other Isseis and Niseis speaking out. But once you are proven innocent, of course you know then you can talk about it freely because you weren't guilty, you didn't do bad things. 

I'm not sure that most of my life, my family, my aunts and uncles ever felt that way. As far as feeling shame to be put their. They knew early on that it wasn't right, but they knew it was also something that was inevitable.

I remember the governor of California at the time [during the] executive order was Earl Warren, who eventually apologized because he was caught up in the political emotions at the time. And he supported the relocations. But it wasn't until afterwards that he realized how wrong he was.

I've talked to people who said he never apologized, like the apology letter signed by Bush. Is it really an apology letter? You know?

Yeah, yeah. But in his case, I felt he although I don't remember how the exact wording [went]. It was enough for me. That he realized that he was wrong.

And later on he championed the cause of the civil rights, right?

I feel this kind of quibbling to say, well, he didn't actually apologize. I don't care that he didn't specifically come out and say to me, I'm sorry, but the way he lived the rest of his life. He did. And he was sorry for what had happened.

Interview conducted by Grace Megumi Fleming. JAMsj thanks Grace for allowing the museum to archive and share these oral histories